


heart eyes

by jaimelanniser



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:40:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaimelanniser/pseuds/jaimelanniser
Summary: Gendry can't seem to keep his eyes off Arya.





	heart eyes

“She’s a pretty one, isn’t she?”

“What?” Gendry almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice next to him. “No she’s not. Who are you talking about?”

Davos let out a loud laugh at that, his hands folded behind his back as he adjusted his stance next to him. Gendry could feel the back of his neck burning even as he looked at Davos, and only Davos. As if that would throw off the suspicion.

“Lady Sansa,” he clarified, giving him a look that clearly meant they were both supposed to understand his meaning.

But the name caught Gendry so off-guard that he genuinely stood there still for a moment, trying to process what he’d heard. Lady Sansa? He turned back to the Stark girls and looked at the redhead, where she was standing off to the side with her family. Her hair was parted down the middle and she was wearing long dark furs, a smile on her long, elegant face. “Oh,” he exclaimed, turning back to Davos. “Yes. Yes, she’s beautiful.”

Davos looked at him quizzically, but said nothing further on the subject. Gendry sent out a quiet thank you to the gods that the Starks had been in the same general direction.

 

* * *

 

The feast had been going on for hours, and night had already fallen by the time Gendry found a quiet place to sit out of the spotlight. People were dancing in the center of the room, the married couple taking turns with each others’ families, blood or otherwise.

Gendry looked up as a large man took the seat next to him. Months ago, he would have immediately stood up and walked away. After everything, however, he merely gave him a nod of greeting.

The Hound folded his arms over his chest and stared ahead towards the dancers like he was. “Does she want you back in her life?”

The question took him off-guard, and Gendry frowned deeply at him. “What?”

“You know who I’m talking about, pretty boy. I was there when they took you away. I was with her when she muttered your name angrily in her sleep. I’m asking you, does she want you back in her life now?” Clegane’s voice was rough, deep, and he did not look at him as he spoke, but Gendry still felt the pressure of his words.

Swallowing, he turned his face back to the hall. “It’s a complicated situation.”

The man next to him let out something that was probably a sort of laugh. “If she doesn’t you’re in for a shit fucking time,” he informed him, as if it amused him. “Your eyes follow her like they’re glued to her fuckin’ dress.”

Gendry flushed. “No they don’t.”

“You should be careful about exposing your cock. It’ll be fully hard before the night’s over.”

Before Gendry could protest, the burned man had left him.

 

* * *

 

 

Jon was well and drunk when he came over to him, stumbling a little, and Gendry had to half catch him when he reached him. Groom’s fate, they said. “You should have told me,” he slurred at him regardless.

“Told you what?” he questioned, leading him away from the table with glasses that could fall and break towards one of the benches, but Jon refused to sit.

“That you’re in love with her.”

Gendry blinked at him. Again…? “You’ve been staring at her with your heart in your eyes all night, my friend,” Jon told him, wrinkling his nose and rubbing at his beard a bit. “At least go ask her to dance.”

After a moment of silence in which Gendry seriously considered lying through his teeth and telling this drunken king that he was imagining things, he quietly conceded, “She won’t accept.”

Jon laughed that. An actual strong laugh, and lifted both hands to place them on Gendry’s shoulders. His eyes were a bit unfocused, but still held his gaze firmly. “I care about you enough that I wouldn’t send you into her path on a death sentence if I actually thought you would get one,” he said, giving him a smile. “Take a risk, Baratheon.”

 

* * *

 

 

Let it never be said that Gendry was a coward.

He walked up to her, in a straight line, everything else in his vision blurring until her laughing form, leaning over Bran’s chair, was the only thing he saw.

“Arya,” he called out, his throat feeling tight with nerves and anticipation.

It seemed like an eternity passed before she turned, looking at him first over her shoulder, then her whole body faced him. “Gendry.”

Even though her smile didn’t fade, there was something there in her eyes that was guarded. It was not the first time that they spoke. No, it had been months since they had learned that they each lived. It had been many conversations. Some threats. Apologies. Maybe a tear or two.

And here they were again.

He cleared his throat and held out his hand, tucking his other one behind his back like a right proper lordling. “May I have the honour of a dance with you?”

Arya kept staring at him, not glancing away from his face to look at his hand, but she nodded, once, and took his hand.

They left Bran behind as they made their way to where the other couples were dancing, and Gendry placed his hand at her back, feeling his chest heave at the feeling of her skin warm through her clothes.

“You’ve been watching me,” Arya piped up, suddenly, her face still impossibly close in their dance, her eyes impossibly fixed on his.

There was no use denying it, so he didn’t. “Yes.”

They turned around the floor, the music driving their movements, but the outside world held nothing for him. Everything was the girl in his arms.

Arya allowed herself to be twirled, then stepped back up in front of him. “Why?”

Gendry should have known to expect this question, and he had no answer for it. Nothing other than ‘because I’m in awe of you’, or ‘because you’re beautiful’, or ‘because I want to spend the rest of my life watching you’.

None of those things were appropriate dancing conversation, were–

“Stop thinking of excuses,” Arya interrupted his train of thought. “I can see you thinking. Stop thinking. Tell me why.”

He laughed softly at her directness. “You know why.”

She held her head a little higher, her hand tightening almost imperceptibly in his own. “I want to hear you say it.”

“You say it.”

Arya glared at him. “Don’t be stubborn! Tell me why you were staring at me!”

Gendry smirked. “No.”

As he had predicted, she clenched her jaw in frustration. “Fine. Suit yourself,” she muttered, dropping his hand.

She was about to step away from him, to turn, but he quickly reached out to grasp at her hand again, tugging her by the waist until their faces stood so near each other that he could almost see himself reflected in her eyes. There was a flash of vulnerability in her expression, and it made his heart swell.

Gendry leaned in, slowly, and turned his face to slide his cheek against hers, til his mouth hovered before her ear and he could whisper the answer to her, so only she could hear.

Arya leaned back, and there was a smile playing at her lips. She nodded at him, again, and side-stepped in time to the music, seamlessly falling back into the dance they had slipped out of at some point.

And as Gendry continued to stare at her, enamoured, it occurred to him that there was a hint of the same expression on her own face.


End file.
